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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Today Stratford High School presented Shattered Dreams, in which students, faculty, and community volunteers come together
to simulate a drunk driving accident in order to raise awareness and prevent
these types of tragedies amongst teens. At 9:00am, all upper-classmen walked to
the street along campus where two cars were positioned to look as if they had
run into one another, both full of actual students. The “driver” of one car had
been drinking, while the “driver” of the other car had been texting. Over the
course of an hour, students and faculty witnessed fire, police, and EMS pull
students from the vehicles and strap them to gurneys, zip them into body bags,
or throw them in the back of police cars. One student was life-flighted to Ben
Taub Hospital. As the scene unfolded, friends and parents of the participants
were present to witness and grieve for the victims. A hearse came at the end to
take bodies to the morgue. Tonight, the student actors will fulfill their roles
further, as if they were truly involved in the accident. Parents will write
obituaries for their children. Those who died in the accident will actually
visit the morgue. And those students who were injured will spend the night in
the hospital, their families by their sides. The rest of the student body will
remain in class today, listening to the sound of a heartbeat flat-line over the
PA every 15 minutes to represent the rate at which someone dies in a drunk
driving accident in this country.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Today is the annual “Spread the Word to End the Word”
campaign, in which advocates of the special

needs community encourage people to
stop using the word “retard” and all its forms. It’s a day that means a great
deal to me now, but wasn’t even on my radar two years ago. It’s probably not on
yours either unless you know and love someone with intellectual delays. Even if
you do, you might glance at this issue and shrug your shoulders, thinking to
yourself that being overly-PC is more damaging to our society than the words we
use to insult others. I probably would have agreed with you a few years back,
to be honest. But there’s something about crossing to the other side that makes
it possible for me to see where you’re coming from, but also insist that you
consider a new place to go. Because using words that hurt others simply to be
funny, or even because you “forgot” to check your tongue, aren’t good enough
reasons to keep using them.

You see, when you use the word “retard” you insult an entire
group of people who are often unable to defend themselves. It’s probably why
the word has been slow to fall out of social acceptance, unlike words like
“ni**er” or “fa**ot.” The goal of the “Spread the Word to End the Word”
campaign is to make “retard” so offensive that even open-minded,
censorship-hating bloggers like myself have to type it with asterisks instead
of letters. But moreover, when you call someone a “retard,” you’re basically
telling them that they’ve chosen to do something stupid and therefore deserve
to be insulted. This word isn’t used with any positive connotation. It’s an
insult, a joke, and a way to point out others’ bad choices. But what you’re
really doing is taking away my son’s worth. You’re making him out to be your
scapegoat for comedy. And you’re making yourself less of my friend. That’s
harsh, I know. But if you can’t respect me and my son enough to stop using that
word, then you don’t deserve my friendship (said with Mama Bear claws fully and
unapologetically exposed).